


(Watch That) First Step

by NeonDaisies



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, discussion of personal boundaries, mutual yearning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8511481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeonDaisies/pseuds/NeonDaisies
Summary: It's pretty clear who Matt Murdock and Claire Temple are. It's far less clear what they could be together. Even though they've both made decisions to walk away from their could-have-beens, the feelings are a hell of a lot harder to get rid of. Without the threat of immediate mortal danger hanging over their heads it's harder to tell themselves that walking away was for the best.





	1. Chapter 1

Matt reaches her as she’s coming off shift during one of the dark hours between the time the bars close and the bakeries come to slow life. February – so far – has been a long slog of colds and flu and overdoses. (Thanksgiving to about January third are at least enlivened by tales of family feuds and poor decision making skills in regards to exercise equipment.) (But there’s hope. Valentine’s Day is coming up.)

She’s been discussing her upcoming time off with a couple of similarly tired coworkers when her phone rings. She doesn’t need to look at the display to know who’s calling – even after so many months of silence – but her eyes find the information nonetheless. He’s never been saved as anything but a # in her contacts, both to protect him and remind herself of what he does. Not that she truly needs the reminder. He and his alter ego are still occasional grist for the media. More to the point she still has ‘bangers, and dealers, and who knows what else show up in her ER with bouquets of bruises blooming under their skin.

“That’s not a happy face.” Shoshona is preparing to work a double and gets to it with nothing more than that observation and a commiserating glance. Melly teases her about boy troubles while she bundles up. Claire makes indeterminate sounds that aren’t exactly agreement but aren’t disagreements either. Because she’s going to take the call no matter how her heart pounds and her chest seizes up. She’s made promises to him, and he’s made promises to the same city whose wounded pass through her care. She’ll answer because sometimes he’s responsible for the wounds but more often he’s the reason directing them away from the weak and vulnerable.

(They’re bound together by conviction and belief as much as they are by coulda-should-woulda-beens.) (Things could have been so easy for them if they hadn’t been so damn complicated.)

“Hello?” Her coworkers leave the locker room but she still finds herself turning away from the door, lowering her voice, seeking more privacy.

He’s silent at the other end of the line long enough that she starts worrying about blood loss, but before she can repeat herself (before she can call his name in a tone that would reveal the depth of that worry) he says, “I wasn’t sure you would pick up.” His voice is dull and hesitant, but thinly underlaid with the dark humor that’s as familiar to her as the sight of blood smeared across his skin.

It’s a relief. It’s a frustration. He pushes and pulls at her just as he always has.

“I told you I would.” She hopes tone and words are as neutral as she imagines them to be.

Has he neglected calling her because he hadn’t believed her? Was he so easily thrown off balance by her (as she was by him) that he would have doubted the sincerity of her offer, he who heard the truth and reality of everything?

“You did.”

If her words had given nothing away, then neither do his.

“So is this a test run,” (and she doesn’t let herself consider what or who he might be testing,) “or is there something I can help you with?” (She’s already heard the pain in his voice. If he lies to her now she might have to think twice before picking up again.)

“Have I caught you at a bad time?”

Claire breathes in and breathes out slowly, part of her counting down from ten and part of her wondering if he thinks there’s a good time for her to worry if he’s going to bleed out before she can patch him together. “Is this a blind thing? I’ve done some reading. Sleep-wake disorder might explain how you’re able to stay out all night.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that –” His voice hitches. “That might be it.”

Bittersweet. That’s probably the right word for how this feels. “What do you need, Matt?”

“I need a second opinion.” The hints of humor are gone, replaced by the weariness that’d been present in him the last time they’d spoken.

“About?”

“I think I dislocated my shoulder.”

 

+

 

He’d promised he wasn’t bleeding, so Claire goes directly to his apartment without stopping for her first aid kit. The streets are quiet by city standards. The air is cold and wetly chill in a way that settles in the sinuses and bones and the joints of the fingers. She jogs up the stairs to his apartment, hoping to warm herself, to get blood moving through her hands again before she has to set them to his skin.

A key to his apartment still hangs on her key ring; it’d been presented to her with the same practicality as that damned burner phone. Maybe at one point there’d been some unspoken expectation of it being used for more than house calls, but as those must be long gone she taps at his door softly before letting herself in.

“Matt?” She dumps her scarf and heavy coat on the bench at the door, not because she imagines this will take long, but for the ease of movement.

“Up here.”

The answer is unexpected to say the least, but Claire moves farther into the apartment, turning on lights as she goes. Not only will she need enough light to see the possible dislocation in question, but the stairs to his roof have always struck her as an accident waiting to happen.

She’s getting ready to lecture him when she gets far enough up the stairs to see him.

“Hi, Claire.”

Her heart beats harder as his lopsided smile clashes violently with the scowl sculpted into his helmet. It’s…disturbing. More than the glassy eyes and – oh god, those really are horns – on their own.

“You’re the one who wanted me to get body armor.” He sounds pleased with himself, as if he’s been waiting to show off to her for awhile now. (Or been wanting to share the blame for this with her.) It’s enough to get her moving again despite the uneasiness caused by the visual clash of emotions he currently represents.

“Yes. Body armor. But this is…”

“Is it really that bad?” He sounds almost disappointed.

“It’s…unnerving.” She crosses over to him and crouches down next to where he’s slumped against the wall. It’s hard to see anything through the semi-rigid fabric. “I imagine it’s perfect for scaring the crap out of street thugs though.” He’s holding his left arm close to his chest with his right hand; maybe he’s still in his uniform for something other than shock value. “Can you take the helmet off?”

“It’s easier with two hands.”

 _And that’s probably as close as he’ll come to admitting he’s incapacitated._ Claire can’t hold back her sigh. (Isn’t sure she wants to. He deserves to know her thoughts on the matter but actually voicing them would probably be a waste of breath.)

“Okay, Captain Obvious, can you tell me how to get it off?” If he’d been able to get undressed on his own, if he’d been wearing the black fatigues instead, would he still have called her?

How many new scars does he have?

“It’s tight, but it just lifts off.”

He talks her through stripping the upper part of his uniform off piece by piece. There’s enough suppressed gasps and winces from him that she doesn’t really need to conduct a visual examination to confirm his suspicions, but this is the game they play. She tells him things are bad, he pretends they aren’t, she gets a second chance at lecturing him when he undoes all her work.

(It’s an exhausting game that’s no fun for either of them.) (Though perhaps…)

_Maybe I just like the sound of your voice._

(…perhaps in the past Matt had done what he could to spend more time with her.)

Instant red flags. She pushes that thought away, shoves it as deeply into her subconscious as she can. 

He’s wearing a very familiar black shirt under his armor; there’s no way she can manipulate it off him without it hurting. However, it’s tight enough that on or off doesn’t really matter. The swelling is clearly obvious, as is the misshapen shoulder joint.

Her hands are firm as she guides him into an upright position, giving her better access to the joint just to be thorough. This time he can’t quiet muffle his groan. “What does the pain feel like?”

“Uh… It tingles. Like pins and needles.”

“Any other pain I should know about?”

“My neck doesn’t feel so great.”

“Cramping? Muscle spasms?”

“That one.”

She carefully guides him back so that the wall supports his weight again. “Okay, how did this happen?”

“Caught something heavy.” 

She sighs. “That’s not really how it works.” They’re going to have to go in and get this fixed, which means they’re going to need a suitable explanation for how this happened, because the body tells. A dislocation from full body contact is different than from a car accident which is different than from being slammed to the ground.

“I caught something heavy that was falling from a roof. While I was also falling from a roof.”

A wrenching jerk might do it. “Mmm… Did this ‘something’ walk away in better shape than you did?”

He nods, a faint grin on his face.

She sits back on her heels and rubs her hands over her eyes. “Okay. So was this jerked out of place or did it happen when you landed?”

“The first one.”

“That must have sounded pleasant.”

His nose wrinkles up and he laughs weakly. “You’re the only one who says things like that to me.”

 _Is that why we haven’t spoken for three months?_   “Matt, you need to go to the hospital.”

“Claire…”

 “You can’t avoid it this time. I mean, sure, we could do the cool-tough-guy-movie-star act –”

“Haven’t we had this discussion before?”

Yeah, he doesn’t go to a lot of movies. She gets it. “The point is, I _could_ pop the joint back in, pack you in ice and leave you with a new bottle of anti-inflammatories… But dislocations are tricky. You could be fine, or it might dislocate again the next time you’re vaulting over a fire escape, and body armor isn’t going to do much to protect you from massive internal bleeding and/or breaking every bone in your body if you fall twenty stories. I’m not going to be responsible for that. So if you want my help it’s going to include a trip to Metro.”

Matt’s quiet for a long time, probably weighing his bad choices. He doesn’t have the leverage to do the job himself, and she doesn’t think his friend would be willing to help him out with this one. But she gives him the time to come to that conclusion himself.

“Will you come with me?”

She’d expected the request, but hearing it… It still makes something inside of her go still and soft and want to be considerate of him in a dangerous way. But she’d made her decision when she’d come at his call. “Of course.”

 

+

 

They make the short (but somehow harrowing) trip down the stairs together, Matt bracing himself against her shoulders, her arm around his waist less for balance and more because feeling how his body moves helps her compensate for his injury. Once they reach the main level she lets him go to his bedroom unaided while she fetches his first aid kit from the kitchen. (She is focused. She’s not here to look around and judge the changes he’s made to the place.) (Though it is nice not to come in and see a battle zone.)

His kit is…she hesitates to call it a relic, but she’s pretty sure it’s just that. Maybe not in the most literal religious sense, but it’s obviously a remnant from another time. Something in the same class as the green glass mason jar with a wire clasp that currently sits on her bathroom counter and holds cotton pads. (Something found in the back of one of her nan’s cupboards and taken home on a whim, but no less important for that.) It’s cool against her palms, lighter than any decently stocked first aid kit should be, but that’s Matt: either he’s not hurt enough to bother with it or he’s hurt enough to call her.

A groan from the bedroom catches her attention. She glares in Matt’s direction and calls, “You’d better not be taking off that shirt without me,” knowing he’s attempting to do just that. Her fingers flip the kit open; at least he’s got safety scissors. (But then, he’s the kind of guy who’d stitch himself up if he thought he had to…for whatever reason.)

(Pride. They’re both of them so damn proud. She supposes that’s as valid a reason for the last months of silence as any. Certainly less…personal.)

(God, she’s here to keep a promise, not rehash what went wrong with their aborted happily-ever-after.)

Matt’s holding his arm again and apparently waiting very patiently for her when she walks into his bedroom. “That shirt isn’t coming off without a fight,” she says, setting the open kit next to his bed. She’s watched him peel versions of it off enough times to know that there’s no way she wants to try to get it over his head much less his shoulder. “I hope you have spares.”

“You’re always trying to get me undressed,” he complains with an attempt at a smile, but his voice is short not with pain but with the discipline of holding it back.

“Yup, you ought to report me to the ANA. Hold still.” Perhaps she takes unnecessary care in cutting the shirt away, but it gives her time to look him over. There’s some fading bruises along his ribs that are easy enough to pick out, but no new scarring.

Not that the old scars aren’t hard enough to look at, but it provides an even more impersonal explanation for his radio silence. (He hadn’t _needed_ help is very much less personal than he hadn’t wanted _her_ help.)

She doesn’t know why she’s still looking for answers to questions she’s not going to ask. They – their strange relationship – is nothing but misfires and missteps with a little bit of nursing on the side.

“All done?” Matt sounds hopeful as she strips the tattered remains of his shirt off his right arm.

Not by a long shot. He’s still wearing half his armor. “Whoa, there Raphael. You’re still armed and dangerous.”

“Was that a Ninja Turtles reference?”

“Totally.” She observes the complicated looking boots, the fitted pants. “This is going to go easier for you if you lie back.”

“That’s what all the girls say.” He grimaces as he follows her instructions. “I’m sorry. That was…a dumb thing to say.”

Since his apology is directed at the ceiling Claire doesn’t respond to it. “Brace yourself. I’m going to get these boots off.”

It takes several minutes but Claire manages to get him stripped down to his underwear. On the job experience helps her get him re-dressed pretty quickly: athletic socks and drawstring sweats go on first, as long as she’s got him on his back. Then she sits back on her heels and surveys his kit again. It isn’t exactly equipped with a sling…not that she’s surprised. But there’s plenty of rolls of gauze; it’ll do until they get to the hospital.

“Calling a timeout?” Matt’s voice is rough; there’s sweat at his hairline and his abdominal muscles are rigid.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and looks him over; stretched out on his bed like that all she really wants to do is tuck him in and go home. (He’s at his most dangerous when he’s unfocused and in pain. That’s when she most wishes she could cater to him.) “Sorry. Time to immobilize that arm.”

This time his groan is purely theatrical.

 

+

 

He looks like a cut-rate mummy by the time she’s done, but between the gauze and the t-shirt she pulls on afterwards she’s fairly confident that his arm is immobilized in the way she wants.

“Easy…” She helps him stand up, pushing up against the hand he braces on her shoulder to keep his balance. “Okay. I’m going to call a taxi. Grab some shoes and a jacket.”

“Sure thing.”

She’s on hold with a taxi company she’s seen dropping people off at the hospital this time of night…morning…when Matt comes out of the bedroom, sans shoes, but with his boots and pants clutched awkwardly to his chest. She watches him from the corner of her eye as she paces back and forth. There’s a… (She’d call it a shed if it were outside, but since they’re inside she supposes it’s a closet.) There’s a closet built against the wall, an odd quirk of architecture that, if she’d thought about it, would have assumed held maybe a broom and a vacuum cleaner. What it actually holds is a battered steamer chest and a crucifix on the back wall.

He grunts as he kneels down in front of the chest; she watches with narrowed eyes as he opens the thing up and moves a tray aside with his one good hand. He packs everything away slowly, then pushes himself to his feet and heads towards the stairs.

“Yeah, the address is…just a minute.” She presses the phone to her chest and hisses at him wordlessly. It’s strange enough that he pauses, reconsiders a trip up the stairs when he’d needed help getting down them. It gives her time to finish giving the company his address and hang up.

“Com’on, get some shoes on. You can clean up later. The taxi will be here any moment.”

He doesn’t say anything but she can see the refusal on his face.

Fine. _Fine._ They have too many flights of stairs to navigate to waste time on this. So she trots up the stairs and gathers up the discarded pieces of his uniform and brings them back down.

Matt blocks her before she can step off the last riser. “Let me.”

“Matt, I can do it –”

“No.”

Fine. She bundles everything up inside the jacket and hands it over so it’s easier for him to carry. “I need you to get ready to go.”

“This won’t take long.”

She watches him carry his load back to the closet. Watches him kneel down again and carefully stow everything away. Watches him close the lid of the trunk and bow his head and cross himself.

It’s the last that makes her look away. Matt’s a complicated man, always has been. But watching this seems…intrusive.

Going to the door Claire slowly pulls her coat back on, tucking her scarf into one pocket. (Helping Matt down the stairs is going to keep her warm enough.)

She doesn’t need Matt’s overdeveloped sense of hearing to track his progress across the room. His footsteps are heavy, uneven. By the time he gets to her she has his coat ready in her hands. He makes a face as she closes it around the arm already pinned to his chest by so many layers, but she ignores it.

“Brace yourself on my shoulder.” Maybe to make up for his earlier stubbornness he follows her instructions, leaning on her while he slips his feet into battered and grimy tennis shoes. He grabs glasses, wallet, and keys from nearby and she stands aside as he closes his door behind them.

“Okay.” She gets his arm settled again as they approach the first flight of stairs. There’s more layers between them this time; it’s harder to judge each microshift of his muscles as he adjusts for his injury. “Instead of telling you to take it easy four hundred and twenty-seven times, I’m just going to tell you that I will _not_ be taking a fall on these stairs for you, and you’ll probably need surgery if you go without me. So just…let me set the pace.”

“I’ve always let you set the pace, Claire.”

Hesitating might throw his stride off so she doesn’t stop walking, but ohhh… She’s not going to touch that comment. He might believe that’s true. And it might be if he hadn’t pulled the emergency brake on their relationship long before she had.

But like she’s told herself multiple times tonight…that’s not why she’s here.

 

+

 

“Middle initial?” Claire’s left hand is chilled from where she holds a disposable cold pack against Matt’s shoulder. Her right hand simultaneously holds down his admittance form and attempts to fill it out.

“M.” He’s not exactly slouched in his seat, that’d probably hurt too much. Instead he’s slightly curled in on himself, fingers worrying at her scarf where it’s half-fallen off her neck and draped itself over his lap. Since she’d had to strip off his coat to make the most of the cold pack, she hadn’t moved it.

 _Matthew M. Murdock._ She glances at him (still pale and drawn from the trip here) but dutifully fills the information in. Address she’s got. Phone number… “Daytime phone?”

He’s quiet for a long time, as if he didn’t hear the question, but she can see his eyebrows are knitted behind his glasses. “Were you gonna fill in a nighttime phone number?”

“Not the one I have.” She taps the point of the pen against the paper. “Am I going to have to twist your arm? I mean, I’m kind of in this HIPAA grey-area, but we are in my place of business. I think I can refrain from stealing it.”

“That’s not…” Matt’s fingers fall still for a brief second in her peripheral vision before they start twisting in the double weight knit of her scarf, fingers spearing through the weave as if to keep her in her seat. “I’m not trying to hide it from you.”

Of course he isn’t. Because there’s about fifteen secrets she’d need him to open up about before they got anywhere near trading things like straightforward contact info.

“I didn’t say you were.” Just that it was clear she wasn’t meant to have it. “I’m just filling out the form. I’m going to need your social security number too.”

“Well, that’s just too much. You’re clearly out to steal my identity.”

“No offense, but I doubt your bank account is worth my time.”

“I’ll have you know that the law firm of Nelson and Murdock hasn’t accepted baked goods in lieu of payment for…at least a week.”

“Okay, well, now that I know a peach pie might be on the line I’m going to have to use my key to sneak into your apartment more often.” And she still has no number. He might not be _trying_ to hide anything from her, but she’s clearly creeping too close to his real life for his comfort. “Do you want me to call your partner? I mean, we’ll still have to get this form filled out, but if you’d rather have him here than –”

Matt rattles off his phone number before she can finish the offer, quickly, as if speed can make up for hedging around the matter. As if hedging around the matter is something he feels he needs to make up for.

(God damnit, they are such a…disaster.)

His hand is fisted in her scarf. The only way she’s leaving is to leave it behind with him.

She wets her lips and looks down at the form. “I…might have missed a couple of digits there.”

“Which ones?”

“Just start from the beginning.”

 

+

 

“ER’s always take this long?”

Claire strokes Matt’s hair back from his face before dropping her hand back to his neck where she’s massaging the muscles to ease the spasms. The steady pain is clearly taking it’s toll. “We got here right before shift change for the admin folks. They’ll get through the backlog here in a few minutes.” After turning his paperwork in she’d switched sides, encouraged him to let her take some of his weight. “Besides, you’re not actively bleeding.” He’s probably heard the ambulances coming in, but she’s better at assessing what she hears beyond the doors.

“Uhhh…Claire?”

She tilts her head and looks up. “Hey, Sho.” Her coworker has stopped in front of them, a small stack of charts in her arms and a curious expression on her face.

“This doesn’t look like a vacation.”

“I’m not expected anywhere until dinner tonight.” Next to her Matt stiffens against her shoulder; she can’t restrain him without hurting him so she lets her arm drop to rest along the back of his chair.

Shoshona looks at (evaluates) Matt, looks at Claire. Points at Matt and then makes the old phone-to-the-ear gesture which she emphasizes with a comically emphasized grumpy face. Claire rolls her eyes and nods.

“Well then. Let’s try to move this along. What are you two in for?” Sho’s a good nurse, even a couple of hours into her second shift. She can see how Claire’s wrapped him up. “Dislocation or separation?”

“Dislocation.” She looks at Matt who’s stayed quiet through all this. “I mean, I think. I don’t have x-ray fingers or anything.” She’s watching for it so she catches the smile that twitches across his face like a wild thing looking for shelter.

“Alright. Well, let’s get you settled in somewhere.” Sho nods her head towards the bays. “Unless you’re clocking in for this.”

That’s an option. But there’s nurses here. Good nurses, people she trusts to do their jobs. What Matt needs right now is…not a nurse. “I’m going to sit this one out, I think.” She stands up and slides gentle hands under Matt’s good arm. “Com’on. We’re getting bumped to the head of the line because I look tired.”

His throat convulses as he swallows whatever sound of pain is inspired by getting to his feet. “Lucky me.”

“Don’t you forget it,” Sho calls over her shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

Claire’s not used to waiting in the ER. Part of her is prepared for the cue to leap into action, to push aside the curtain and move on to the next thing. Part of her is watching her coworker, her brain silently running its usual diagnostic tally as Sho starts gathering information. (Height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, etc.) The information is none of her business, though at the same time Matt’s probably more comfortable with her having it than he is with her having his phone number, for example. Which is…par for the course for them.

He has no known allergies to any medications, which is probably a question she should have asked ages ago. Assuming she had more than purloined hospital samples to give him in the first place. And assuming he’d ever actually take them even if she left them with him.

Medical history she listens to with half an ear, listening for any key words that might one day make some kind of difference in her off-the-books nursing practice, but nothing stands out. Well, nothing in the information he has stands out. He doesn’t actually have much information at all, which maybe answers some very personal questions she’s been unable to let go of. Like why it’d been so easy for him to walk away.

“God damnit,” she whispers under her breath. Exhaustion doesn’t explain why she’s having such a hard time keeping her mind on the business at hand instead of things they’d settled months ago. She seriously needs to get a life outside of work. She needs –

“Claire?”

“Yeah?” She forces herself to stop pacing (not that she remembers _starting_ to pace) and waits, wondering if Sho wants a consult or –

“Go get a coffee before you fall asleep on your feet.”

It’s not _that_ bad. It’s not like she’d worked a double or something. Sure, maybe she’d stayed later than she should have, but patient charts don’t update themselves, and this time she’d had warning that she was going to be away for a couple of days…

Matt’s watching her. Or doing his version of watching her, which seems to include a look of unhappy concentration and a hand fisted around the edge of the gurney. She’s seen how pain sits in his body. He doesn’t go hard and motionless with it like a lot of people do. This is not his usual deliberate relaxation.

This isn’t a consult, or even looking out for a coworker. This is advocating for the patient. Her unrest has upset him enough that even Sho has noticed.

“Matt?”

“I’m fine.”

Of course he is. Intellectually she knows that. She’d leave him in the care of any of her coworkers in a heartbeat. She also knows that’s not what _he_ means when he says _I’m fine._ He uses the phrase to set boundaries, establish hierarchies of need where her agitation is more important, more _deserving_ , than his actual physical…

Her heart is racing and Matt turns his face away from her like he can’t bear to listen to it any longer, and maybe Sho is right and she should distance herself from this long enough to get a grip even though she knows what’s coming next. (What’s coming next is the process of getting Matt out of his t-shirt so the bandages around his shoulder can be removed for the coming examination. What’s coming next is bared scars and too-thin hospital gowns and questions that Sho is going to approach obliquely because really Matt’s body shouldn’t look like that because blind men don’t do the things he does which means there has to be other explanations and the most likely one is abuse of some kind…)

And maybe, just maybe, Matt’s thinking far enough ahead that he doesn’t want to entangle her relationships with her coworkers in his lies, though thinking ahead isn’t exactly his strong suit.

(That’s mean.)

(She’s so…)

(Angry.)

Mere seconds pass while she deliberates, because none of these thoughts are new. They’re not even really thoughts anymore. Everything is complicated and everything hurts, and it all just sort of lives in her bone marrow and seeps into her blood to be hurled through her body at the same speed as the pounding heart he’s trying not to hear. (He can literally hear all of her arguments and disappointments, even if he doesn’t understand what he’s hearing.)

“Okay.” She gathers up the mass of their outerwear and bundles it into something that can fit into her locker because the wait time for the x-rays he’s going to need is going to be at least close to an hour and then things will depend on the severity of the dislocation and she’d rather not haul all of it from place to place until they’re free to leave. “I’ll be back.”

Matt smiles a little when she says that. Like it hadn’t really needed to be said.

 

+

 

His things – _their_ things – fit neatly in her locker without any effort on her part. (It is oddly soothing.) Claire looks at them for a long time  (Why can’t everything be that easy?) before closing the door and walking away. There’s a vending machine on the second floor where she can get a terrible cup of coffee.

 

+

 

She can’t get that image out of her head, of her coat and Matt’s nestled together in her locker. It’s enough to shift her unruly emotions back towards bittersweet instead of something so…acrimonious.

She needs to do a better job of remembering that she’s not the only one still feeling the weight of missed possibilities. Matt’s said enough to make that obvious; in fact, it’s probably the casual way he keeps bringing it up that’s got her so on edge. Doesn’t really matter whether he’s doing it to prove to them both that he isn’t hurting anymore or if he’s trying to prove he’s simply stronger than the familiar ache. (And honestly, either one is as equally likely, considering who she’s talking about.)

Anyway. They’re both hurting. She should try to keep that in mind. (Of course, Matt’s disregard for pain has always made her grit her teeth if not bite her tongue.)

(But then, that’s what the terrible coffee is for.)

 

+

 

She slips back into his treatment room as Dr. Omdahl is wrapping up his examination. There’s a sweetly earnest expression on Matt’s face as he mumbles something about a girl he’d met in a bar. His body language – hunched shoulders, good hand moving to hide one of his scars before dropping away – says “self-conscious.” The lopsided grin says, “If you know what I mean…”

Claire rolls her eyes and retakes her seat in the corner while the doctor strips off his gloves and enters his notes in Matt’s chart. She takes a moment to do her own silent visual exam. The swelling is bad, but doesn’t appear worse. His posture is more relaxed, though he tracks her progress across the small space.

“None for me?”

“We don’t want to give you anything that might upset your stomach. Sooner or later that joint’s getting put back where it belongs.”

Matt sighs but doesn’t argue the point. Then she takes the lid off the cup and lets the slightly metallic scent of too hot machinery drift out along with the scent of coffee. (The vending machine on the second floor is ancient and runs hot enough that it sometimes smells like burning oil. It probably should have been replaced a good decade ago but that takes money and in a hospital there’s always something else that takes precedence.)

(She’s watching for it so she spots the there-and-gone-again expression of distaste on his features as he catches a whiff off her drink.)

(A tiny voice in the back of her head tells her that this isn’t the way to foster the emotional distance from him that she needs to keep. But it’s just too much…fun. The things he can do, the things he can _sense_ , are just…) (Amazing.) (Fascinating.) (And from what he’s said she doesn’t think anyone else is as willing to just play with them.)  (With him.)

(Has he ever looked at his own abilities as something other than a devastating tool?)

“Claire, you provided initial treatment?” Omdahl sounds distracted as he finishes his notations.

“Yeah.” She pulls herself back into the room, back out of her own head and the merry-go-round of confusion inside of it.

“Matt says you didn’t give him anything for the inflammation?”

She nods in agreement as the keyboard clacks away. “External treatment only.”

“Cold compress?”

She nods again. “Figured it was better than nothing, and we’d get him something a little stronger than an OTC once he was here.”

Omdahl nods absently. “I’ll send someone in with that while we wait on radiology. Shouldn’t be long. We’ll try to get you home as quick as possible.”

“Appreciate it.”

The doctor leaves and Sho bustles in a couple if minutes later with 800mg of ibuprofen and a waxed paper cup full of water. Matt takes them without protest, which is a nice change of pace though it makes her wonder about his motives. Maybe he’s decided not to fight since he’s already in the hospital. Maybe he actually hurts that much. Maybe he’s trying to keep up the mild-mannered-blind-guy façade. Maybe it’s a combination of all of them, maybe it’s something she hasn’t thought of. Most certainly it’s none of her business since he _does_ take them. (It’s not like he can cheek the pills with her in the room, after all.)

Then she and Matt are alone again. She yawns and settles into her seat a little more comfortably. He fiddles with his glasses, his head still turned towards her like he’s listening to something. Or for something. His bashful expression from earlier is gone like it’d never been. (What does it say about them that she’s more comfortable with his intensity than with something lighter?) (What does it say about her that she closes her eyes and leans her head against the wall like that’ll help put off whatever it is that’s bothering him?)

 

+

 

Claire sounds tired. Her footsteps lag, every other breath is an almost inaudible sigh, and there’s a low rasp in her voice when she speaks. And her creeping exhaustion is just the most innocuous reason he should send her home.

If he were a better man, a stronger man, he’d tell her to go. Now that her coworkers are aware of their connection, they’d likely take special care of him as a favor to her. Because Claire’s like that, is someone who’s so selfless that it makes other people want to live up to her example. Foggy’s like that – can be like that – but Claire doesn’t seem to get as distracted as easily. Or so he assumes; other people don’t appear to make her heart lurch with quite the same violence he’s capable of causing.

Once. He was strong enough for her once. He’s never been able decide what to make of the fact that she hadn’t taken the clean escape he’d offered her the night Fisk had bombed the shit out of the Russians. (Hasn’t let himself wonder how different life would be if he’d presented himself on her doorstep that night instead of leaving her a voicemail when he’d known she’d be elbow deep in the walking wounded.)

(That’s a lie. He knows what she would have…what he _hopes_ she would have done. She would have pulled him into her steady warmth and held him there through every following upheaval, would have let his hasty words crumble between them instead of allowing them to stand until they can barely be in the same room together without the still-healing wounds breaking open.)

(Maybe that’s why he’s stayed away. Because leaving would be too hard.)

He honestly hadn’t thought it’d be this bad when he’d called her. He’d thought…he’d _assumed_ that Claire would still be strong enough for both of them. (Instead she’s slouching in the corner; instead she’s involving herself in his life, again, which has never done anything but cause her pain; instead she’s willing to sit next to him and comb her fingers through his hair, and press the tension from spasming muscles.)

It’s Stick’s voice in his head telling him that he’s weak. To be fair, that’s about the only thing that Stick’s voice in his head ever says, so it’s fairly easy to ignore. Except in this case it’s right. She’s hurting and it’s his own damn fault. It would have been hell, but he could have made it this far without her. There’s nothing dangerously distinctive about a dislocated shoulder.

He’d just…finally…had a good reason to call her. To hear her voice again.

Claire’s always been the strong one; she’ll leave him, if she has a reason to. (She’s expected somewhere for dinner. By someone.)

He opens his mouth to tell her to home, to take her own advice and get some rest, but what he hears himself say is, “You didn’t tell me you were going on vacation.”

“You didn’t ask.” Her voice is low. Distant. But he can hear her teeth grinding together, the sound is harsh enough to make him wince. Which in turn makes him groan as he instinctively tries to curl away from the noise.

She’s on her feet in an instant, and out the door the moment after that.

_Good job, Murdock._ He drops his head back and lets his groan echo in the empty room. There’s a reason they fight so hard to keep things light and impersonal. At least if they’d been fighting over whether or not she should leave, she wouldn’t have left without even a word –

She slips back into the room, almost silently and approaches the gurney on tired feet. “Here.” There’s a popping sound, a light chemical scent, and a slight chill before she drapes a cold pack over his shoulder. “I know this probably isn’t up to your usual standards…” Next she pulls a rough, hospital issue blanket over his lap, fussing as she straightens it. “…but it’s not the warmest in here.”

“Claire…” He’s going to apologize for…something. He’s not sure what. For intruding where he’s not wanted most likely, but he’s kind of lost control of his mouth. _Don’t go._ His teeth clamp shut before he can voice the plea.

Her hands still, their heat radiating down to his thighs as they clench in the blanket. She’s standing so close that her soft breaths ruffle the hair at his temple. “Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday. I’m supposed to drive upstate this afternoon. We got a cabin near Peekskill for the weekend.”

_Vacation. Dinner. Family. Birthday._ He’d bought a burner phone so his mess wouldn’t intrude in her life. _(“What happens on the night when I’m already talking to someone else?”)_ (He’d bought _himself_ a phone, that would only ever be used to call her, as a way of subtlety marking his territory. As a reminder that his needs came first.) (He’s a dick, and even knowing that he can’t stop from pressing for more information.) “We?”

This time she doesn’t answer. (Doesn’t reassure.) “What are my odds of getting you to lie back?”

He’s intruding where he’s not wanted. That’s the easy answer to her evasiveness. (Even though she doesn’t _sound_ reluctant.) So when she tells him to go limp and let her do the work of getting him reclined, he does. (He’s surprised by her strength; she swings his legs up onto the bed then lays him down smoothly, despite his dead weight resting against her arm.) She props him up on a couple of pillows then settles on the side of the bed, one leg pulled up and pressed against his side. He wants to reach out and take her hand, but she’s already giving far more than they’ve bargained for.

The quality of her silence is familiar. She’s thinking something over; maybe deciding if she’s going to answer his question, maybe trying to shape one of her own. It’s just as well that she went into nursing – she’d make a canny lawyer. He’d rather face her over bandages than the bar.

Finally she sighs, a painfully familiar sound, as is the trace of a smile in her voice. “You know, I can’t say I’ve missed _this_.”

“But?” There’s definitely a ‘but’ coming. (He doesn’t bother asking what “this” means. It could mean any one of a dozen things, none of them as potentially interesting as the unspoken ‘but.’) (It isn’t hard to infer that there was something about the situation that she _has_ missed.) (He’s a bastard for hoping for more than her company.)

 

+

 

_Hmmm…_ Claire watches Matt and weighs the odds. On one hand, trying to get his phone number out of him had been like pulling teeth. Not that she isn’t just as bad. Her first instinct when asked a personal question is to deflect. They just circle around and around each other, each of them guarding their injuries, pretending they don’t exist. It’s no wonder they can’t move past anything; they won’t admit there’s anything to move past.

She’s just so tired of the song and dance routine.

So even though her heart is pounding, even though she can’t help but look away to hide her face, she offers something.

_“But,”_ she says, conceding the point. “I’ve missed…” This would be a hell of a lot easier if he weren’t blind. If she could look at him and he could look at her and she wouldn’t have to _say_ anything. (If he could see there would be so many ways for her to cop out and still get her point across.) Then the tips of his fingers find the inside of her wrist and rest there, a link that seems to endure whatever words they do or don’t say. A reminder that she not exactly in this alone.

“You know I’ve missed you.”

He struggles with her statement, much more than she thought he would. Frowns and swallows hard, and presses his fingers more tightly against the pulse beating over the tip of her radius. Matt Murdock, human lie detector, unwilling to believe what his ears are  telling him. His head shakes, a single back and forth motion that seems to be less about disbelief and more about trying to orient himself. “Why?”

“You know why.” He must. She’d left her coffee on the stand next to the bed and she reaches for it now, more to give her hands something to do other than fuss, to give her mouth something to do other than run away from her. It still tastes bitter and acrid, but that’s not so different than…

She misses him for the reasons he misses her. Except he looks so confused that it starts to sink in for her that maybe he’s never considered that she might have regrets about how things turned out between them. That despite everything she’s said on the matter, that she hasn’t wanted to turn back the clock and have certain conversations with him again.

_He doesn’t_. Which is…

Later, when she’s had time to sleep and look back at this conversation, and at each of the little things that have rung the quiet alarm bell in her head this morning, she’ll be able to decide how she feels. In the moment all she knows is that her pounds so hard that Matt’s fingers slip off her wrist and retreat under the blanket she’s brought him as if a physical barrier is enough to distance him from her…distress.

_Bloody and alone._ Personal observation or unintentionally correct guess at a self-fulfilling prophecy in progress?

And of course, before she can recover, before she can even catch her breath, the door to the room swings open as Sho backs a wheelchair through. “Radiology’s ready for you.”

_Oh._ Claire carefully stands up, unconsciously smoothing her hands down her front like putting her clothes to rights will settle her. She backs away, let’s her friend do the work of getting Matt upright, standing, and seated. Ignores the odd looks she’s getting in favor of taking another sip of her drink. Terrible as it is it helps focus her, reminds her of her reason for being here.

_They_ are not the reason she’s here.

_He’s_ the reason she’s here.

_They_ can, and have, always waited. Perhaps she’s said enough for enough. Perhaps even too much.

For now she follows Matt and Sho down the hallway to an elevator.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've been working on for a couple of months, and while it's not complete, I figured everyone needed a break from election day coverage.


End file.
